Nothing trumps college sports tradition like cash

1:44 PM, November 23, 2012
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Rutgers athletics director Tim Pernetti, with Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany to his right, is happy to compete against teams on the far side of the Mississippi River if it means being able to fund all of them. / The Star-Ledger, US PRESSWIRE

by Mike Lopresti, USA TODAY Sports

by Mike Lopresti, USA TODAY Sports

And now, fresh from one of the conference commissioners - a eager bunch of beavers otherwise known as Dollars R Us - the latest brainstorm for a red-hot new league football rivalry.

Rutgers vs. Iowa.

Another day, another shuffle of schools in college athletics, where the conferences get realigned more often than your tires. By now, everyone knows what the howls will be about. Traditions ditched. Geography stretched. A conference name made even more mathematically inaccurate. All for the sake of the dollar.

Perfectly true.

But it's the right thing to do. Unfortunate, but right.

We have seen this rerun more than How I Met Your Mother. Today, the Big Ten adding Rutgers and Maryland. Yesterday, the Atlantic Coast Conference. The day before the Southeastern Conference.

Sigh. Might as well, because this is not the end. Money is talking, and money never, ever loses its voice.

Oh, and you're so different?

The commissioners want more money because their schools - their bosses, by the way - want more money. The schools want more money, not because the president and athletics director plan to vacation in Maui, but because it is expensive to fund the lacrosse team and the swimming team and the softball team. Not to mention hire the new football coach for whom all the boosters and media are clamoring.

If everyone is worried about how much the colleges spend, how come they're so anxious to fire the coach after a 3-9 season, even with three years left on his contract? Then, nobody cares.

The Ohio State athletics website lists 37 sports. Athletics director Gene Smith could probably use a few extra bucks for the fencing program.

``At some point in time in life, to gain some things, you have to do some things you've never done before,'' Smith said after the Big Ten's Maryland acquisition was announced. ``You don't skirt your traditions. (But) the reality is, you have to do something. You have to be progressive.''

So the Big Ten, once as Midwestern as silos, now has a school near the Hudson River and another inside the D.C. Beltway. Colorado is now attached to the Pacific Basin, Missouri to the steamy Southeast. And we count the days until Boise State is in the Big East. Idaho is east of Spokane, Wash., but not many other places.

The upsides are easy. For the Big Ten, Maryland and Rutgers mean East Coast TV. East Coast exposure. East Coast recruiting. For Maryland and Rutgers, the Big Ten is a stable ATM.

The downsides?

Busted rivalries ...

OK, no more Duke-Maryland in basketball. Just like no more Texas-Texas A&M in football in the Big 12. But emotions can get transferred. How aroused do you think the crowd in Tuscaloosa will be the next time Texas A&M visits Alabama?

Take two teams, have them going after the same thing, throw in a few costly defeats, a brash word or two. Bingo. You have a conference rivalry. As for the traditional matchups left behind, I know of no NCAA rule that prohibits teams from playing as non-conference opponents, if they want to badly enough.

The mis-fitting name ...

The Big Ten hasn't had 10 teams since last century. Yeah, it's kind of out of date, but then again, the second T in AT&T stands for telegraph. How many telegrams have you received lately?

Geography ...

True, one wonders the sanity of the Maryland soccer team traveling to Nebraska for a conference game. But we happen to have a mileage chart, and it says the distance between College Park and Lincoln is only slightly more than the trip from Seattle to Westwood, Calif.

Washington and UCLA have been in the same conference for eons, and nobody's complained.

As an old traditionalist codger, I'd just as soon not see this deteriorate into a mindless expansion frenzy. A 20-team league is silly. Sixteen is pushing the limits of reason. Guys, try not to panic, though it's hard to be confident that you won't. ``At some point in time it could be `enough is enough,' '' Smith said. ``I just don't know when that is.''

But reality is reality. Maryland and Rutgers and the Big Ten have bills to pay. Who doesn't?